NAIROBI // The sprawling slums on the edges of Kenya's capital are choked with rubbish and teeming with rats. Open sewers run through the dirt ruts where people walk and cars drive, making any resident vulnerable to disease. The slums of Nairobi posed additional dangers to women and girls, who face a constant threat of sexual violence as they bathe or use the inadequate communal toilet facilities, a leading human-rights group has said.
The Kenyan government has failed to incorporate slums into urban plans and budgets, resulting in poor access to sanitation services for hundreds of thousands of women, Amnesty International, a London-based rights group, said in a report released this week. The 54-page report, Insecurity and Indignity: Women's experiences in the slums of Nairobi, said that 75 per cent of women in Nairobi's slums have too little access to sanitation facilities. They are often raped on the way to or from the communal facilities at night, the report said.
